A-Kon Bits & Pieces
Kevin Caldwell
The feedback from Project A-Kon 8 last weekend has been rather sparse,
so I'll come out of hiding to say a few words. This was my second
A-Kon, and overall I enjoyed it much more than last year. (Yeah, yeah,
"the loss of power resulted in a harmonious bonding of fellow fans,"
but I'm antisocial, so I don't bond too well.)
Due to some misinformation in the program guide, I ended up almost
missing the first event that I wanted to attend. (Note: Never trust
scheduling information older than a couple of hours.) After a brief
"tour" of the dealers' room early Friday afternoon, I went up to my
room to drop off my goods and happened to check the video schedule to
see what was showing. Naturally, the Fan Video Contest was already in
progress, so I raced back down the halls just in time to see my last
entry fading out. The same thing had happened last year, so I just
have rotten luck with these things...
I did get to see all of the other entries, however, and I thought that
they were better than last year's on average. Lee Thompson won the
People's Choice award for his two Weird Al videos ("Just One of those
Days" and "Midnite Star," both of which were quite entertaining),
Duane Johnson received the judges' award for his El-Hazard / "Return
to Innocence" video, and I was stunned to hear that I had won the Best
Technical award for my tribute to Isaac Newton's first law. Getting
the timing down using nothing but a cheapo JVC VCR with basic editing
features was an exercise in masochism, but I'm glad that someone
enjoyed it.
At the opening ceremonies, they threw a bunch of random stuff at the
faceless minions packed into the room, then we watched a Warrior Nun
Areala trailer (nuns with guns, rather interesting looking), "The
Item" by White Radish (cute!), and the opening animation to the Ghost
in the Shell Playstation game from Production IG (quite slick).
On Saturday, I attended AD Vision's panel to gripe about the laserdisc
situation, but a bunch of other people beat me to it. According to
ADV, titles will be examined on an individual basis to determine if
they will get the LD treatment. Matt Greenfield said that judging by
the performance of the first Eva disc, the following episodes would
probably be released. He said that the Blue Seed and Eva discs sold
quite well, possibly due to their episode density (4 per disc), and
that following releases would probably consolidate episodes and even
different titles to make the LDs more attractive to buyers.
ADV also announced that they had picked up the rights to the Slayers
movies and OAVs and were "in negotiation" for the rest of the TV
episodes. They are pleased with their financing venture (Burn Up W)
and have decided to support the production of two more titles (names
were not mentioned, but it was implied that these were sequals to
shows that the Japanese would probably never continue on their own
(Battle Angel? Sol Bianca? Mighty Space Miners?!)).
Later, I went to the "Mommy, why does my anime have tentacles in it?"
panel and was treated to the strange combination of listening to Matt
Greenfield talk about sexual channeling in Japanese society, while
beside him Amanda Winn (ADV's prime voice actress) was attacking a
Sailor Moon doll and fondling herself with a "Hentai-saurus" hand
puppet.
Saturday night I went to my first cosplay (got in line just as the
doors opened and just barely made it inside). I was expecting a bunch
of guys in sailor fukus (I think there were only two), but most of the
acts were pretty entertaining. My favorites were the Overfiend
(complete with a bunch of those long modeling ballons carefully
sculpted into anatomically correct tentacles) and the Ranma - Ryoga
song (during which, Ryoga lost his place in the music for a couple of
verses).
Sunday, I went to the banquet and ate my first real meal of the
weekend. (Note: Never forget to eat. You'll pay for it later.)
On my last whirlwind tour of the dealer's room, I managed to purchase
a bootleg CD (non-SM, but I should have been more careful). The guy
refunded my money, but the con security refused to bust him for it. I
wanted blood, but the crew was tired so I didn't push it. I was a bit
disappointed in the import LD selection, but I still managed to blow
enough money to feel satisfied.
As I sit here recovering from my first illness in something like 8
years (brought on by the lack of food and sleep, no doubt), I would
like to thank the A-Kon crew for the best time I've had in quite a
while. I hope to repeat the experience (sans starvation, tardiness,
and black market purchases) next year.
Kevin Caldwell